>>51646719
>competitive
>programming
for what purpose.jpg

>>51646808
it's a lot of fun and you learn a lot =)

>>51646808
also, if you're into it, it helps you get into companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.
Their interviews are piss easy compared to what you do in contests and participants can usually show the interviewers tons of different ways to solve the problem

>>51646823
>it's a lot of fun
You want brogramming, not programming.

>you learn a lot
You can't learn from books? Good luck reading documentation.

>=)
>>/reddit/

>>51647000
You can read up a lot of algorithms from books, then you have to be good enough to implement them / know how to use them during the contest, no idea why you assumed we do no reading

>>51646719
bump, no interest from /g/? you disappoint me.

>>51646719
I'm always too dumb for these. Is there some introduction level I'm supposed to start at.

>>51648577
This is a good short read:
http://codeforces.com/blog/entry/17842

You start learning the basic algorithms, i.e, binary search, shortest paths, graph traversal in general, toposort, etc, and solve problems which only require one of those techniques.
The harder problems usually involve mixing techniques. For example, ternary search over the answer running a matching algorithm each time, so once you get used to the basics, you move on by mixing them.
TopCoder tutorials are good. Also, there's a book from Steven Halim which covers a huge range of topics: https://sites.google.com/site/stevenhalim/

>>51646849
This is the real point.
Competitive programming got me my job.

It was fun enough, but actually competitive programming isn't my thing.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy normal programming, but competitive programming is just challenging, it's like repeatedly taking a much harder tech interview, where it really has to compile, etc.

Went to regionals once, but that was it, didn't do great.
Best part is the people and opportunities.

>>51648636
Without opening these and in the interest of time, do these resources provide code walk throughs? I find that it's easy to understand complex data structures in abstract, but isolated from actual implantation renders any code damn near indecipherable.

>>51650088
Contestants are allowed to carry practically unlimited amount of printed stuff, so you can take code with you. Normally, you'd implement a data structure once and then copy the implementation when you need it. It is by far more important knowing how to use a structure than how to implement it. It will only make you waste time remembering all of these.
Having said this, most of these resources explain why an algorithm works and provide an implementation, but as I said before, it's better to stay with the intuition and assume you have implementations available